Earlier this week, UK mobile company Ideaworks3D announced it was splitting into a game development studio and a games technology development lab.

The first news to come out of the renamed Ideaworks Labs is that its middleware - used to make games such as Konami's Metal Gear Solid Mobile - now supports natively-compiled applications for all Android devices currently in the market.

The platform is added to Airplay's support list, which includes iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and BREW devices.

It uses a single binary approach for handling native CPU instructions, enabling you to compile your applications once, then deploying them with a single click.

"We welcomed Google's decision to introduce support for native code sections within Android SDK 1.5. Airplay SDK effectively builds your entire Android application as a native code section," says Tim Closs, Ideaworks Labs' CTO.

"As well as offering improved user experiences through huge performance increases, this approach allows Android to be added as a truly supported Airplay platform. Of course, Airplay also handles all the differences between Android devices, effectively presenting Android devices as a single platform for developers."

Airplay works using standard C++, POSIX and OpenGL ES APIs, irrespective of the underlying operating system or hardware.

The Airplay APIs and resource framework make it straightforward to accommodate varying device form factors such as screen size, touchscreen, keypad and accelerometer.

All device-specific firmware issues and idiosyncrasies are handled within the Airplay runtime.

You can find out more about Airplay via its website.